Review+ INT Giveaway: The Beauty Game by Michaela Day

One beauty product formula failure and a million girls with skin they’d literally die for. Brilliant. Chic. And so The Devil Wears Prada.

Blurb: The Beauty Game.When talented copywriter Zoe Diamond first enters the plush offices of global beauty empire Visage D'Or she doesn't own a face cream.She thinks uplift is by Wonderbra. And wrinkles are removed with an iron.Soon she's seduced, manipulated and betrayed by charming words, false promises, and the powerful men behind them.She doesn't drink. Lie. Or have sex on the boardroom table.Yet.She learns beauty means pain.Truth means legal lies.And miracle creams make beautiful profits.Drowning in champagne-fuelled corruption and scandal, Zoe fights to keep her job, her reputation and most importantly, the man of her dreams.But will she succeed before The Beauty Game destroys her...?

MY SYNOPSIS

Imagine this: You work as a copy-writer, one of your ads with your copy partner, Hugo, just won an award. You two are in the mood for some celebration, get sozzled in the process and give your boss, Dick, who happens to be a real big dick (not literally), an opportunity to sexually abuse you. Fortunately he doesn’t succeed, you thank your stars, the only mistake is you failed to resign. Now your ad agency, has posted you to another job, which you are very sure was the sole decision of Dickhead. You are going to write copy alright, probably make award-winning one-liners and scripts, but the only thing is, you’ll be writing Beauty copy. Fuck.

Take a scenario when the only beauty you apply on isn’t even lipstick, lip gloss, or even lip balm. Your encounter with Beauty might be the natural beauty you have going on there (think Audrey Hepburn) and there’s no room for eyeliners, eye shadows, consistent teeth flossing, waxing, fake tanning, real tanning. But you are asked to write on Uplift, and surprisingly, you don’t know what Uplift is (because you do not watch Fashion Police or any of the Real Housewives shows). There’s no room for failure, you have got to succeed, else you would go from award-winning to unemployed at Dickhead’s order.

Your introduction to the world of Beauty gives you an opportunity to meet the movers and shakers of the (Beauty) world. From tantrum-loving models, to sloven directors, to pussycat-loving female bosses, colleagues who’d shag anyone to get a promotion and uber-sexy demigod male tycoons that make your skin chill. Suddenly, your live’s a whirlwind between Paris, London, Nairobi, New York. Joggling a (kind of) long-distance relationship with a guy you met on one set, to sleeping with the big, bad evil boss with a sexy accent, preventing Dickhead from getting into your pants, avoiding Hugo――the partner who’s been laid off, resisting the urge to yell at one super-annoying female colleague, spying on a beauty company and wearing the latest Alai, Louboutins and L’Oreal. All in the name of writing copy for a revolutionary product that actually works (in taking lives of people and) giving a million girls in the world skin they’d die for. Really? Where are your morals?

Zoe Diamond’s liveS summed up for your entertainment.

MY REVIEW

I remember clearly the very first time I picked The Devil Wears Prada (sadly, the movie. One of those people who watched it before they read it), the bubbly feeling I had at the premise where different women of different tastes were dressing up for work (sadly again, it wasn’t for the appearance of female skin that gave me this walking-over-the-moon feeling). I had that same feeling when I read the blurb and the very first chapters of this book. I love fashion, beauty, magazines, ads, copy-writing, advertising, so any book based on the following themes win a star from me.──★

Secondly, this book has a storyline, a million readers would die for. Ugly Duckling who knows nothing about grooming is introduced to the big, bad industry of Beauty, and transforms into a Black Swan. It’s relatable, because most of us dream of big, bad jobs in the beauty/fashion industry, most of us would love to steal from the press rack of our dream magazines and most of us just love skin free of Acne, signs of ageing and the like.──★

I love Michaela Day’s style of writing, where she introduces her chapter as a movie scene with cuts and close-ups of girls taking selfies with the Eiffel Tower as background, or a lady strutting on Broadway (close-up on her clack-clacking zebra-print Louboutins), it gave this book somewhat of a racy feel and made me feel anticipated to know which character was chinking glasses with a gorgeous man in some limousine every time I turned a new chapter. Sweet.──★★

This book had characters to die for.  I loved Duchess, the old and idealess boss with her many gay friends and her compassion for our lead girl, Zoe. Bellini, the super-bitchy colleague who’d sleep with anyone to get promotions and negotiate her way with agents to hook high-end famous models for as little as the price of discounted Turkey on Thanksgiving. I loved Laurent, the big, bad, evil, sexy boss whose accent would sure make female readers brave enough to read this non-put-down book at bus stops weak at the knees. Laurent’s foil, Leo, whose mysterious simplicity which would be a turn-on for female readers, is also a drive to keep reading this book.──★★★

This book had so many OMG moments, I hardly kept track at a time, and kept nodding whenever they came. So many surprises, so many deaths, so much suspense that kept me on the edge of my yoga mat, all for the formula of a product that could give skin a million girls would die for.──★★★★

I loved this book. But I wish I loved, loved it. I felt it lacked humor where it could have gone laugh-out-loud funny. And expected a high level of chicness for a book set in the cutthroat advertising/beauty industry where anyone would go lengths for creams that actually work. Don’t get me wrong, it was chic. But on a level of Miley Cyrus and Emma Watson, I’d rate it a Heidi Montag――which isn’t good enough.

My rating: Four/Five Stars.

You can get the Beauty Game here in both kindle and paperback.

Michaela Day is giving away Three signed Paperbacks of Beauty Game. Enter to win.a Rafflecopter giveaway

I recommend this book for anyone who wants to read a book like The Devil Wears Prada, but this time, portrayed in the ever-cunning Beauty industry. Anyone who loves a book set in all the fab places in the world should also pick this. Anyone who wants secrets about the world of the Beauty products should get this. Now, ladies, if you’ve ever wondered what it takes to produce and reformularize all your fave products on the market, the ones you rave about so much and all of a sudden can’t speak bad about when they (kind of) don’t seem to work as they did anymore, get this book! Love, sex and skin a million girls would die for!

My work not done here. Off to post my review on Goodreads.

RELATED POST: FIND OUT HOW TO WIN FIVE PAPERPACKS IN ONE RAFFLE IN THIS YEAR'S BLOGIVERSARY.